I'm guessing the new iPad pro can not take an external drive? Only reason why I ask, would be nice to really replace a laptop, but storage is an issue. Any idea if you can do it yet?

Click to expand...

You can use a wireless device like a RAVPower FileHub or Kingston G3 that allows attachment of a USB hard drive. I use the RAVPower and it works great using the RAVPower app or FileBrowser to access the drive. Or you can use a dedicated wireless hard drive (the file hubs are more versatile as you can use different storage devices).

awesome, you know for some reason i never thought about a wireless drive. So do you have to have internet to use it though? have only had wired. like on a plane, etc. when working would I be able to connect without internet?

awesome, you know for some reason i never thought about a wireless drive. So do you have to have internet to use it though? have only had wired. like on a plane, etc. when working would I be able to connect without internet?

Click to expand...

These devices create their own local network that you connect to - the Internet is not involved. I have the RAVPower and it works great with my Air 2 and my Android tablet and phone.

Nice! never heard of this. So just hook up an external hard drive to it and done? Does the hard drive mount on the iPad? How do you access it / save files to it / move files from it? Or now that I think about it, might be an app?

Nice! never heard of this. So just hook up an external hard drive to it and done? Does the hard drive mount on the iPad? How do you access it / save files to it / move files from it? Or now that I think about it, might be an app?

BTW, thanks for the info on this! really appreciate it

Click to expand...

I generally use the 3rd party FileBrowser app instead of the provided app to see and access the USB drive which is attached to the FileHub. Then you have the usual iOS hoops to jump through - "open with" or "copy to" another app. To go the other way, I have to get the file to the FileBrowser app and then copy directly to the USB. iOS doesn't make any of this easy but I have found most everything doable. The same process applies to almost all similar wireless devices.

Nice! never heard of this. So just hook up an external hard drive to it and done? Does the hard drive mount on the iPad? How do you access it / save files to it / move files from it? Or now that I think about it, might be an app?

BTW, thanks for the info on this! really appreciate it

Click to expand...

As already said you can access them from the usual iOS methods, I have the Kingston MobileLite wireless G3 and it's a great device. The official app for it is really good as well.

It's wireless ac, the only one that is so far, so it's pretty quick, very versatile and can accommodate external drives up to 2TB in capacity.

There's quite a few options available, but there's a couple of important points to consider when you're choosing.

First up and I think really important is make sure whichever you choose is pass through capable, not all of them are. It might seem like a little thing, but you'd soon get plenty annoyed if you had to keep disconnecting from the drive to access the internet. Having pass through gives you access to both the wires storage and Internet simultaneously.

Second one is the obvious one, speed. Almost all of them are a/b/g/n which isn't bad. But if you're going to transfer a lot of bigger files, the faster you can get the better. At the moment the only one I know of (I spent weeks researching the buggers before I bought mine) that has wireless ac is the Kingston G3, the extra speed comes in handy.

And don't underestimate the importance of battery life. It's not only good for keeping the unit going but some of them let you use their battery as an emergency charger for your device as well.

There's quite a few options available, but there's a couple of important points to consider when you're choosing.

First up and I think really important is make sure whichever you choose is pass through capable, not all of them are. It might seem like a little thing, but you'd soon get plenty annoyed if you had to keep disconnecting from the drive to access the internet. Having pass through gives you access to both the wires storage and Internet simultaneously.

Second one is the obvious one, speed. Almost all of them are a/b/g/n which isn't bad. But if you're going to transfer a lot of bigger files, the faster you can get the better. At the moment the only one I know of (I spent weeks researching the buggers before I bought mine) that has wireless ac is the Kingston G3, the extra speed comes in handy.

And don't underestimate the importance of battery life. It's not only good for keeping the unit going but some of them let you use their battery as an emergency charger for your device as well.

Click to expand...

One other aspect that came in handy for me - ability to take an Ethernet input and act as a standard wireless router. There are still places out there with wired but not wireless connectivity (or with good wired and lousy wireless connections available).

One other aspect that came in handy for me - ability to take an Ethernet input and act as a standard wireless router. There are still places out there with wired but not wireless connectivity (or with good wired and lousy wireless connections available).

Click to expand...

Yeah that's true, I'm forgetting not all of them offer Ethernet input, good call.

I use a 2TB Seagate Wireless drive. The iOS app called "Seagate Wireless" lets you set up the wifi password for the drive and you can get the drive to access another wifi network so as you can connect to the Seagate Wireless drive and still have wifi Internet access. The drive can also sync your Dropbox account to it so you have offline access to your Dropbox files if you are away from wifi. Even if you are away from wifi, you can access the wifi drive, you just don't get Internet access via it since it is not on wifi.
Via the app, I also enable my iOS photos from my iPhone and iPad to backup to the drive. This ensured I had a backup while travelling and was great in case I lost a device.
I use Handbreak to convert video to iPad format, just using the inbuilt settings, then I transfer the videos to our iPads and excess videos to the drive. This way, I can transfer excess videos to the iPads after we have watched the first lot of videos that are installed. This drive is USB 3, so transfer to the drive is reasonably fast. Wifi transfer to the iPads is not very fast, but you can set off a couple of files to transfer while watching a different video in the same app or while you go and shower. You do need to remain in the app that you are transferring to for the transfers to complete when you are transferring large files. I was using OPlayer for video watching and it was fine, but lately I have started using Infuse Player Pro and find it graphically pleasing, it also plays unconverted video more smoothly so I'm happy with it. I would still recommend converting to iPad format though since you don't need a higher quality for iPad viewing, you will have smaller file sizes and therefore fit more files and also less transfer times.

A bit of a side note or 'how to' just because this tripped me up the first time....I use the Settings app in the iPad to connect to the wifi on the Seagate Wireless drive....then open my player of choice and then connect to the drive which appears in the video app. OPlayer asks for a username and password and I leave both blank, you already used the wifi password to connect to the drive and there is no separate username and password once you are connected.

so i got the ravpower hub and I was able to get it mounted to my iPad. Having an issue of actually opening the file and being able to edit it. When I open the file, its more like a PDF where I can read it only. This is a file done in pages (and I DO have pages installed on my iPad). Also tried with another file done in Keynote, same thing is happening. I cannot edit it. I transferred it to my iPad. Am I doing something wrong?

so i got the ravpower hub and I was able to get it mounted to my iPad. Having an issue of actually opening the file and being able to edit it. When I open the file, its more like a PDF where I can read it only. This is a file done in pages (and I DO have pages installed on my iPad). Also tried with another file done in Keynote, same thing is happening. I cannot edit it. I transferred it to my iPad. Am I doing something wrong?

Click to expand...

Look for the share icon (rectangle with an arrow pointing up) or a more icon (three dots). Then pick "open in..." and copy to Pages, Keynote, or whichever app you want to use to edit the file.

MacRumors attracts a broad audience
of both consumers and professionals interested in
the latest technologies and products. We also boast an active community focused on
purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac platforms.